I said and I said, even sneaked it into editorials where the editor has the last say, that Iran would most definitely retaliate even as experts and analysts loaded the local and international press with sobering assessments that the ayatollahs would not “fall into Israel’s trap of an all-out war”.
I said it when Donald Trump ordered the assassination of Iran’s General Suleimani in Baghdad in 2020 and after Benjamin Netanyahu greenlighted the bombing of the Iranian embassy in Damascus, effectively Iranian soil, in April – each time popular opinion leaning in favour of Tehran realising its limitations and exercising restraint.
Years of following and occasionally covering the Middle East have taught me an important lesson about Iran’s hardline clergy that rules against the wishes of the majority.
For better or worse – and you’ll find roots of this argument in Robert Fisk’s coverage of the Iran-Iraq war of the 80s – it specialises not only in enforcing strict, slavish compliance to its regime, but also in biting the bullet and going all-in when it’s lines are crossed; even if the endgame is assured self-destruction, the kind of defiant martyrdom so celebrated by the Shi’a.
So, Khomeini’s Iran had no qualms about sacrificing 200,000 men and women (70 per day according to some counts) in the war with Iraq, Saddam’s number one policy priority when Washington armed and prepped him after his takeover in Baghdad. Khameini’s Republic, too, never blinked in the years and decades of sanctions, instead carved out new alliances, actively aided the resistance in Palestine and Lebanon, and Syria during the civil war, and paid back in kind whenever push came to shove.
Yet even as my heart sank as I read about Hasan Nasrallah’s assassination, I feared Iran would take the gambit and make Bibi Netanyahu a very happy man.
For, Iranian ballistic missiles running into the Iron Dome over Tel Aviv assured US participation, and a wider war is now inevitable. The Jewish state has once again used war, especially its latest campaign in Lebanon, to compound its mythical military might with stunning intelligence successes that are the stuff of legend in the world of espionage.
It hijacked international supply chains to booby trap Hezbollah’s preferred communication technology, developed sources deep in Iran’s Revolutionary Guard and Hezbollah’s top leadership, killed Ismail Haniyeh in the heart of Tehran, levelled seven-story buildings to deliver its bunker busters to Nasrallah’s precise secret location, and provoked Iran into open conflict.
The ayatollahs have been forced to deliver Netanyahu his top war aim on a plate, and with a cherry on top. Now the war will expand, which means he’ll stay in office and avoid the corruption case hanging over his head. And the US will be dragged into the fight, which means Uncle Sam will not just give Israel the bombs it drops on Palestinians and Lebanese citizens but also take direct part in the pounding.
Market spasms following Iran’s retaliation gave a taste of what is to come. Safe haven trading into the dollar, gold and US Treasuries, a 25pc spike in VIX in one session, Wall Street’s fear gauge, and a 5pc jump in Brent – reviving oil’s role as the Middle East’s risk indicator – show how quickly risk premium will return to the market in case of a wider conflict, especially if Iran shuts down the Strait of Hormuz.
The moment we have all been dreading since Israel unfolded its disproportionate response to October 7 seems to have come. The Israeli leadership has realised that the north will never be repopulated till Hezbollah is eliminated to the last man, and that will never happen till Iran is also neutralised once and for all.
But it will take the American war machine to have a chance of bringing the curtain down on the theocratic regime of Iran’s ayatollahs. It is putting this piece of the puzzle in place that’s been Netanyahu’s chief war aim for a year, not return of refugees or residents of the Galilee.
Yet even if all this is achieved, it will not be without consequences. Israel’s next move will show the level of US backing; so everybody, like the markets, waits and watches.
The world has sleepwalked into two world wars and the currents and cross currents of today carry eerie echoes of the weeks and months leading up to at least one of them. And the war clouds descending on the Middle East since last year are the thickest and darkest they’ve been in a long, long time.
Iran has taken the bait, and Bibi has got the war he wanted. All that’s left is for the US to show its cards.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2024
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